RTC:Motorola has long been identified as the leader in VME. Recently, there has been talk about some products going to end-of life, and Motorola’s commitment to VME has been questioned in some quarters. Could you set the record straight about VME vis-à-vis Motorola’s plans and product mix?

Vittori: The recent end-of-life announcement of our 68K-based products was necessary because of the discontinued availability of components needed to produce them. Perhaps a more significant point here was not the end-of-life announcement, but the fact that Motorola had continued to supply these 68K products for such a long period of time. This end-of-life announcement does not signify any change in our commitment to VME. We are offering product migration strategies that enable our customers to continue to use Motorola VME products for many years to come. Motorola has been the leader in VME since its inception in 1981. As we approach the 25-year anniversary of VME, we remain as committed as ever to maintaining our long-standing product leadership in VME.

RTC:Can we expect to see new VME product releases in the future, e.g., VITA 41, 46, etc.?

Vittori: VME is a key element of Motorola's Application-Enabling Platform strategy and we remain committed to leading the embedded computing industry with VMEbus products and technology. Our MVME6100 and recently announced MVME3100 demonstrate this product commitment and support for continued innovation such as 2ESST. We have also been very active in leading the definition of VXS standards. At this year's Bus and Board Show in January, we announced our support for VITA 41 and PCI Express fabric standards and it is our intent to develop product based on these standards. We do not currently have any plans to announce products based on the VITA 46 standard.

RTC: To some extent, ATCA is a relatively pure play in the communications sector, and VME largely fits into the industrial and military space. How do you see the mix of products—VME, CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA (ATCA) fitting into the various application areas and segments of the market? Do you anticipate any tie-in between the various form-factors—i.e., will Motorola be looking to launch ATCA, AMC and other form-factors into the industrial, commercial and military spaces?

Vittori: The AdvancedTCA standards were defined and developed by the PICMG 3.x standards committee, which took input from a broad spectrum of PICMG members. One of the critical objectives was to facilitate standards-based development in the telecommunications area, where the use of CompactPCI/PICMG 2.16 had already proven useful for applications at the network edge. Key trends we now see in the market include the convergence of traditional server-based applications and telecom applications. Global telecommunications competition is forcing service providers to carefully examine their business models with the objective of achieving rapid deployment of new services, while constraining costs to maximize revenue.

Layering standards-based software, such as high-availability middleware based on the SA Forum standards, onto standards-based hardware platforms, such as AdvancedTCA, gives equipment manufacturers many of the time-to-market and cost competitive advantages they need to meet carrier demands. This creates a horizontal industry model very much like that of the modern enterprise computing market, rather than the traditional, vertical, in-house focused development of the past. As a result, some segments of the enterprise computing market with reliability requirements that approach telecom levels are increasingly interested in solutions based on AdvancedTCA and SA Forum standards.

Smaller and more fragmented markets, such as the defense, medical and industrial automation segments, are still rooted in a vertical market model as demonstrated by the continuing strength of the market for VME boards. However, new programs such as the Navy Open Architecture and the Army/Air Force SOSCOE initiatives are more aligned with Motorola’s Application-Enabling Platform concept. An Application-Enabling Platform integrates industry-standard hardware and software elements into a computing platform that enables equipment manufacturers to deploy new products faster and with fewer resources. Motorola plans to offer Application-Enabling Platforms, based on VMEbus hardware, for this type of program.